Would you like to know which congresscritters voted for and against the
bill? So would I, but I guess we won't find out. It was passed by voice
vote, so there is no record. Why do we let them do this?

Why the federal government should act as an agent for Michael Jackson and
Madonna is beyond my comprehension. Aren't they able to look out for
themselves? Copyright law already addressed the issue in a much more
reasonable manner.

If any people are getting screwed by music piracy, they are the
obscure independent artists who won't benefit at all from this legislation.
In fact, the new law actually screws them worse, because now they have to pay
substantially more money to buy "professional" DAT recorders in order to make
digital copies of their own music. And they have to pay a 3% tax on the blank
tape they use to record themselves!

The law does have one benefit to the consumer. It explicitly makes it
legal (or more precisely, non-actionable) for you to copy audio works for your
own use (
section 1008). That's
right, it is now perfectly legitimate for you to borrow the latest Madonna
album from a friend and make yourself a copy, despite the copyright. Pretty
neat, huh?

But now that you have a legal right to copy music, the same law requires
that equipment have SCMS, to make it difficult for you to exercise that right
(section 1002(a)).
What kind of sense does that make? And of course the law prohibits the
manufacture or sale of devices whose primary purpose is to circumvent SCMS
(section 1002(c)).

It is claimed that the purpose of SCMS is to eliminate large-scale
piracy, but there is no evidence to suggest that it does so. In reality it
only serves to frustrate the consumer.

Presumption of Guilt

When Sony introduced the first consumer video cassette recorders, the
motion picture industry was terrified that everyone would pirate tapes and
noone would buy them or go to the theatre. They lobbied congress for the
imposition of a tax on blank video cassettes. Congress was smarter back then
and realized what a fiasco that would be. A tax on blank media is essentially a
presumption of guilt. They are in effect saying "We know that everyone who
buys blank media is breaking the law, so we're going to fine you for it up
front."

SCMS is designed from the ground up to support this presumption of guilt.
Let's suppose for a minute that I have my own band, and we use a DAT recorder
to cut a demo tape. If we hook up a microphone to the analog input of the
DAT recorder, it can't be certain of the status of the source, so it will flag
the tape to prevent multiple generation digital dubbing. Not only does
Congress presume me guilty, they have mandated that an inanimate object should
presume me guilty. Not to mention that I have to pay a 3% royalty tax on the
blank tape I used to record my band. It's entirely possible that Michael
Jackson and Madonna will make more money from my band than I will.

As has become evident in recent years, the advent of video cassette
recorders has if anything increased the revenue of the motion picture
industry. This parallels the introduction in 1964 of the Phillips Compact
Cassette. The recording industry opposed that, but now derives almost half of
their revenue from sales of cassettes. With so much historical precedent
indicating that new recordable media formats increase industry revenues, how
did they convince congress to impose this ridiculous tax?

The Future?

Now that congress has given us the DAT tax, how long can it be before the
motion picture industry tries again? And what about floppy disks? I'm sure
the Software Publishers Association would love to get a similar tax on blank
floppy disks. After all, they claim the industry loses billions of dollars a
year to piracy, although they've never shown any solid evidence of it.

I'm a software author, and my work is sometimes pirated, but the
government isn't acting as an agent for me, nor would I want them to.
Realistically I know that most pirated software is pirated by and used by
people who wouldn't have bought it anyhow. This doesn't make it right,
but I can't count it as lost revenue.
If the government decided to tax floppy drives and blank floppy disks I'd
be extremely pissed off. Then every time I made a copy of
my own programs I'd
be making Microsoft and Lotus richer.

By just the slightest amount of extrapolation, it is evident that we can
expect to see taxes on blank paper and photocopiers. Once all of these new
media and recorder taxes are in place, the continued greed of industry and the
success of the "lost revenue" justification will inspire them to try to ban
libraries. After all, lending out books deprives publishers and authors of
revenue. And for that matter, lending my lawn mower to my neighbor deprives
the lawn mower company of revenue. Eventually we will be required by law to
go to the theatre once a week whether we want to or not, to avoid depriving
the movie industry of revenue.

What you should do

I've written to my congresscreatures asking them to introduce new legislation
to repeal this mess, but it seems unlikely that it will actually happen.
Once someone gets their hands directly into your wallet, how likely are they
going to be to let go?

In the mean time I'm only buying 60 meter DDS tape, which isn't subject to the
tax because it doesn't fit the definition in
section 1001 (4)(A)
since it isn't marketed for use by consumers to
make digital audio recordings. It also is specifically exempted by
section 1001 (4)(B)(ii), because
it is primarily marketed and most commonly used for computer programs or data
bases.

60 meter DDS media is of higher quality than audio DAT media, has fewer
dropouts, and causes less head wear, while being completely compatible with
audio decks and providing 120 minutes of recording time. You might expect
that it would cost more than audio DAT media, but if you shop carefully it is
actually less expensive. It is also possible to find once-used DDS media for
substantially less.

Even though it is tempting to use 90 meter DDS tapes for 180 minutes of
recording time, I recommend against it, as it is thinner tape which audio
recorders are not designed to handle properly. While they may seem to work,
they are considerably more likely to break. The audio recorders (as well as
some first generation DDS drives) only control the tape tension appropriately
for the thicker tape.

120 meter DDS-2 tape should not be used in audio recorders at all, because it
is even thinner than the 90 meter tape, and it uses a different formulation.

Note: the references to Michael Jackson and Madonna should be taken only as
examples of performers who are so successful that I doubt they need the money
from the DAT tax. In fact, I have no idea whether they (or their agents) have
filed any claims for it, but if the government offers to give you money, do
you turn it down? Anyhow, I have nothing personal against them and I don't
mind supporting them when I buy their CDs, but I draw the line at blank tape
and recorders.